Dress Stands

For the life of me I could not find the stands that came with the actual dress form kit, so I had to improvise. I discovered that it is rather easy to make a custom stand for a dress form. For the vintage lace dress form I used a banister that I had left over from a staircase and I used it upside down. I also used wood turnings and dowels. For the actual stand you can use wooden beads, or even buttons.

Step 1: Cut a piece of floral tissue paper that is big enough to drape round your dress form, from the bust to the bottom.

Step 2: Paint the dress form with Mod Podge and gently drape the tissue paper around the dress form to make the bodice. Try to avoid having too many wrinkles. Leave it to dry.

Step 3: Paint the entire bodice with Mod Podge and leave it to dry.

TIP: It will be much easier to work on this dress form if it is mounted on the stand you are using first.

Step 4: Cut a length of 2â wide strip from your black tissue paper that’s long enough to go around the hips of your dress twice. Now fold /â of the strip over lengthwise to create an overlay.

Step 5: Gather the tissue paper strip with

your fingers and glue it around the dress form’s hips using Tacky Glue. Check with the photo above for placement.

Step 6: Cut off the excess paper at the back and overlap the ends of the skirt to create a back seam. Glue the seam closed with Tacky Glue.

Step 7: Paint the skirt with Mod Podge.

Step 8: Using left over tissue paper, cut a long strip about 1â wide and long enough to fit around the waist of the dress form over the skirt. Fold the strip in half twice and drape around the top of the skirt to hide the gathered top of the skirt. Spot glue the strip into place using Tacky Glue.

to the skirt first and then topped them with a floral loop and streamer.

Step 9: Using scraps of tissue paper, cut strips to make streamers and loops to decorate the back of the dress. I made one black loop and two streamers that I glued

Step 10: Paint the streamers, bows, and the drape around the top of the skirt with Mod Podge to stiffen.

Step 11: Cover the shoulders of your dress form with black net. This is optional, but I felt it added a nice detail to the dress form. Just cut two small pieces and glue them in place.

Step 12: Cut a small piece of chenille and glue it around the neck of your dress form. Cut two smaller pieces and glue them to the tops of the shoulder.